Twisted Games: A Dark Gang Romance (Boys of Briar Hall Book 3)

I tossed my cell to Corvus with Diesel still screaming down the line, rushing to kick off my heels and pull my bra and black dress back on over my naked body.

“We’ve got company,” I said to Grey and Rook just as a loud bang resounded in the Red Room. I jumped, drawing a blade as the bang came a second time, louder. Someone was battering themselves against the door, trying to get in.

Becca was out there.

Grey drew his gun, lifting it to take aim at the door as it burst wide open and Axel came flying through.

“Fuck, Axe,” Grey said on a breath. “I almost fucking shot you.”

“They’re coming,” Axel said, practically frothing at the mouth, his own gun held tightly in his right hand, aimed low to the ground. “We need to get these kids out of here.”

“It’s too late,” I told Axel, shaking my head. “If they’re already on the dock road they’re going to be here any minute.”

“Get as many of them as you can into this room,” Corvus ordered. “Move the rest out back along the dock. We’ll keep them as far away from the line of fire as possible.”

Axel hesitated.

“Fucking now, Axel.”

“Becca,” I said, panicked, racing after Axel through the door. “Where the fuck is—”

“Aves!”

My breath caught when I saw her, standing with her arms tight around herself by the couch. “Becca!”

I went to her, flipping my blade into my palm to take her by the shoulders without cutting her. Her eyes were wild with fear. “It’s okay,” I told her. “You’re going to be okay. Come with me.”

“Sparrow,” I heard Corvus shout behind me just as the music was cut and a loud gunshot rang through the room, soliciting screams from the crowd. I shoved Becca behind me and lifted my blade, but it was only Axel getting everyone’s attention.

“Everyone shut the fuck up,” Axel bellowed, surprising me with the level of volume he was able to put out from his smaller frame.

The crowd quieted and Corvus took over, storming to the edge of the stage. “Listen up,” he hollered. “There are some really bad fucking people on their way here right now. Hey! Hey you, stop. Don’t try to leave, there’s no time. These people don’t have qualms about laying out a few innocent people to get what they want.”

Somewhere to my right, several girls began to cry.

“Calmly,” Corvus said, injecting the single word with enough venom to put even the strongest man into a state of paralysis. “I need everyone to make their way to the Red Room. Hey! Did I say to fucking move yet?”

Those who’d already begun to push forward stopped, whispers and cries rising from the throng.

“You will not all fit. Once the room is full, lock the door. The rest of you make your way out onto the back deck. Spread yourselves out, but stay behind the wall of the warehouse. Keep low.”

“Aves,” Becca said, her eyes glinting in the still-blinking and sweeping lights carving paths over the floor.

I squeezed her hand in mine, trying to keep her calm.

“Okay now move,” Corvus said and as one the crowd rushed the stage, pushed through and around us to get to the Red Room. Some people already running for the docks out the back door.

I pulled Becca through the oncoming stampede, barely able to hear her over the panicked voices clogging my ears when she asked me where I was taking her.

I could sense more than see or hear the guys hot on my tail as I weaved a path toward the back office. Unable to wait for a key, I kicked the door in when I got there and dragged Becca through.

When I let her hand go she shakily came around the bar, reaching for the shot glass and bottle of whiskey that had been left there. She poured herself an ounce and knocked it back, breathing out through her mouth.

I unzipped the closest duffel to me and dug inside, past an AR and a shotgun to find what I was looking for.

I tucked one Glock into a strappy holster and threw it over my chest, carrying its twin to Becca.

She looked between me and the gun in my outstretched hand like I’d lost my damn mind.

“Don’t worry,” I told her as the guys entered behind us and I heard the flinch-inducing sounds of guns being prepped for killing. “You probably won’t have to use it but there’s no fucking way I’m leaving you unarmed.”

“Oh god,” she said, her chest heaving, tits swelling over the shelf of her corset top as she accepted the gun into her hand.

“This is the safety,” I showed her. “You don’t have to cock it. This is safety on. This is to turn it off. Got it?”

She blinked, clearly overwhelmed. She wasn’t hearing me. She was going to fucking die.

Without thinking, I slapped her across the face and she cried out. All sound behind me ceased for a second before resuming.

Becca blinked, her shoulders settling, eyes clearing. “Fuck,” she said. “I needed that.”

“Safety,” I repeated, and she swallowed, flicking it on and off with her thumb, a red handprint coming through on her cheek.

“Got it.”

“You shoot anything that comes through that door.”

“But what if—”

“We’ll announce ourselves first if it’s us,” I assured her. “You can’t afford to hesitate, Becks. Do you understand?”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

She bent, lifting a small black trash can to her face, the gun still tight in her manicured fingers pressed against the side of it as she hurled and then set the can down to run the back of her hand over her mouth.

“Do you think he’s going to be here,” she asked.

I knew who she meant, and a sharp cold bit into my bones. If the guy who’d been after my Crows was here…

“If he is, I’m going to kill him,” I promised her. “He won’t get to you.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she said, repeating the word again and again, nodding as she backed up to the wall, stopping only when it blocked her from going any further.

I pointed a finger to the corner. “Stay over there, by the couch. From there you should be able to see someone coming in before they see you—”

“Ghost,” Rook growled behind me. “We have to move.”

“Remember,” I told Becca as she shakily moved to tuck herself by the couch in the corner of the room.

“Shoot first, ask questions later,” Becca finished for me.

“You got this.”

Grey held out two extra magazines to me, and I fed them into their places in the holster strapped over my chest as he snapped the buckle at my back, locking the whole mechanism in place. I was absolute shit with a handgun, but I only had so many blades.

“I see headlights!” We heard Axel outside the office.

“How long?” I asked, the question obvious. The only one that mattered. How fucking long did we have to hold out until Diesel and the others got here?

Corvus’ eyes darkened, and he tossed me my phone back. I tucked it deep into the left cup of my bra. “About sixteen minutes.”

It was going to feel like a goddamned decade.

I let my darkness rise within, felt it fill my chest with toxic air, breathe extra strength into my muscles as it danced with the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I tipped my head to one side, cracking my neck as I double checked the mag in the Glock and slid it back into the chamber, pulling the slide back.

A delicious shiver rolled down my spine, and for one blissful second, I felt fucking bulletproof.

“Let’s go fuck up some Aces,” I said and Rook smiled wildly, his tongue trapped between his teeth as he sucked a breath in, his savage excitement ramping up my own.

“We hold out,” Corvus said, his tone stern. “No hero shit. We hold the fucking fort until Diesel gets here. No one’s dying tonight. Not on our fucking side.”

Grey nodded his agreement, but Rook and I shared a look. A dangerous understanding passing between us.

If I had my way, there wouldn’t be a single enemy soul remaining on this earth come dawn.

We moved, and I ignored the little choking sob of Becca behind me, needing to focus to get through this. To keep her and every other innocent person here tonight safe.

The silence in the booze scented room was so complete you could hear a pin drop as we moved through it toward the front bay door. Light flashed over the front of the building, blinding me for an instant as I dropped low, moving to stand in against the inside wall, peering out down the docks.

My pulse thudded violently in my chest at what I saw.

Car after car after car came screeching into the lot, stopping to let the Aces and Dead Men come pouring out.

We’d been so certain they wouldn’t try an attack here, but now, looking at them, it made sense. They knew the Crows held this territory and partied here for every full moon. If they took us out before Diesel could get here, then they could hold the Docks, and all the hostages trapped within it.

And Diesel, having more honor in his pinkie finger than Lenny Ace did, would give him what he wanted to stop a slaughter.

It was the perfect plan.

I vowed in that moment to never underestimate my enemy’s ability to be even more ruthless than I was.

“There are too many,” Derrik shouted, light on the balls of his feet across from us against the other side of the bay door opening like he might flee. “We’ll never hold them off.”

He wasn’t wrong.

We were almost too late to move out of the way as an automatic weapon pumped lead into the bay door from way down at the other end of the long pier. Some of the bullets pushed through the worn wood, leaving smoking holes for the moonlight to filter through.

“Anyone hit?” Axel asked.

No one answered.

But they would be soon.

This building wasn’t going to hold up to that much gunfire and they were already slowly making their way up the dock toward us.

Rook took a running step and launched himself across the bay door opening, opening fire as he went, tucking in his chest to roll the last few feet to the other side, bullets missing him by a hair.

I peered through a bullet hole and saw that he’d gotten two of the bastards, but there were already six more there to replace them.

“Watch out,” Grey bellowed, knocking me to the floor, the air stolen from my lungs as another line of gunfire punched holes in a long line down the side of the wall right where my fucking head had been.

I crawled closer to the opening and made a snap decision.

They weren’t going to stop coming.

Even as slowly and carefully as they made their advance down the dock, they’d be on top of us in the next two minutes, the group quickly growing as more vehicles arrived, Dead Men and Aces walking shoulder to shoulder, heel to toe.

We needed to stop their advance.

There wasn’t time or the equipment required to blow the dock, but there might have been something else I could do.

I tore myself from Grey’s grasp, my dress tearing as I ran like a shot back the way we’d come.

“Sparrow!” I heard Corvus call after me, but I wasn’t stopping.

This had to work.

A gunshot sent me dropping to my knees as I slingshotted myself through the office door.

“Jesus.”

“Oh my god, Aves! You said! You said you would announce yourself.”

Her hand shook on the gun. “It’s okay. You did good.”

I grabbed the sniper bag from the floor next to the bar and took off. “Just keep doing what you’re doing!”

She shouted a stream of curses after me, but I was past hearing her, rushing to the back of the building.

“AJ, what are you doing!” Grey shouted, but no one followed me as I shoved through the back door to the shouts of the teenagers huddled against the wall.

“Hold still,” I told the tallest looking one, stepping up onto their back to get a handhold on the old rusted ladder that was busted off at the bottom. I hauled myself up, my shoulders screaming their protest until I got a foothold and cleared the top of the ladder, throwing my legs over onto the roof.

I kept low as I raced over the debris, avoiding the soft looking spots where water was puddled, algae foaming around the edges.

My fingers fumbled with the zipper only for a second before I got it down, pulled out the sniper and yanked the tripod free, feeding bullets into the slot like Grey taught me.

I cocked it back to the sound of a cry below, my heart in my throat. It wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t one of them.

They’re fine.

I lifted the barrel over the wide edge of the roof, butting the rifle to my shoulder, staring down the scope, adjusting it.

There was a flurry of movement as the enemy reached the entrance to the Docks and I heard Rook’s throaty bellow as he went ape on the ones who’d managed to get inside.

I was too late to stop them, but I wouldn’t be too late to slow the flow.

I breathed in, settled on a moving target, breathed out, and fired.

He jerked back, falling in a heap.

Heads snapped up.

I took aim. Fired again.

Again.

Two more shots.

Reload.

It wasn’t enough.

They were still coming. Pouring over the docks like ants.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I reloaded, lifted back onto the ledge.

Found a face I recognized.

I twisted the dial on top of the gun, turning on the red dot sight. It pierced Lenny Ace square in the chest.

I saw the instant he noticed, his body going deathly still as he stared down at it, hands raising.

He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear him from here.

Sweat dripped down my forehead, and I squinted, trying to keep it from getting in my eye, keeping steady.

Like dominos, the Dead Men and Aces stopped their advance. Guns were lowered.

“Stop!” I heard Lenny this time as he shouted, still raising his hands ever higher as three more gunshots inside the warehouse below me signaled the deaths of three more of his men.

My finger brushed the trigger, the darkness within beckoning, whispering violence in my ears. Kill him.

Kill him.

All shooting ceased, and I breathed slow out a small opening in my lips, my arm starting to shake from holding the heavy weapon steady.

If I killed him, one of two things would happen.

Either they would all disperse, or I would have created a martyr. Given the Dead Men’s leader a chance to double the size of his gang by taking in Lenny’s as his own.

There was the other option, of course. I could hold until Diesel got here. Clean up this mess for good.

My phone vibrated forcefully against my left tit, and I jerked, almost losing my aim, but able to right it again.

Carefully, I held the sniper in place with one hand while I fingered out my phone with the other, tapping blindly at the screen until the call was answered and on speaker phone.

“Sparrow?”

“I’m a little busy at the moment, Bones. Call me back later?”

“Don’t shoot.”

I ground my teeth.

This fucker tried to kill my guys.

He’d gotten each of them shot on fight night.

Those wounds had yet to heal.

He didn’t deserve to live.

“Sparrow?”

“He needs to die.”

“Can you hold?”

Fire flooded my belly. “Yeah,” I gritted out. “I can hold.”

But Lenny Ace, waiting for the others to do all the work for him at the far end of the long dock, stepped backward. One small step.

I dropped the barrel of the sniper half an inch and shot the pavement at his feet before immediately lifting it back to his chest. He started, lifting the leg nearest the smoking ground like a fucking flamingo before setting it back down.

His mouth moved, and I strained to hear what he was shouting.

“What the fuck is he saying?”

“He wants to leave.”

“Fuck that.”

“Sparrow,” Corvus warned. “If you kill him, the rest of them are going to rush the pier. The Dead Men didn’t join with the Aces to lay down arms and give up whatever they were offered. If Lenny’s dead, they’ll try to take it and more. They won’t ever get another opportunity like this. I need you to hold.”

I growled my frustration, stroking the trigger, a shiver rolling down my back.

Just a little more pressure and we could kiss this bastard goodbye for good.

Was Corvus right?

Hold, the rational part of my brain argued, buffing my biceps and shoulder, lending them more strength to keep holding the long weapon in place.

But the darkness was still whispering, and I wanted to feed it the blood it craved.

“Five minutes,” Corvus’ promised. “They should be here in five minutes, Sparrow. Hold.”

The wind quieted enough that the next time Lenny Ace’s vile mouth opened I could hear him. “We’re going to leave,” he shouted, his voice echoing across the lake.

Fucking coward.

“No one else needs to die tonight,” he continued, his voice cracking, arms beginning to lower. “I’m going to back up now.”

“The fuck you are!” I roared, uncaring if he could hear me or not.

Lenny took a step back.

“Corvus,” I hissed.

“Don’t, Sparrow. It’ll be a bloodbath. We can end this another time. On our terms.”

I clamped my mouth shut, breathing in and out rapidly through my nose as I watched Lenny slip back a step. Then another.

Someone opened the side door of a van a few paces away from him and climbed inside, beckoning for him to follow.

NO.

We were not going to let them get away.

“Diesel and the others can stop them on their way out,” Corvus promised, but if Dies was still five minutes away, they could take the dirt road leading around the Deadwood. They could get to the highway before he could intercept them. They could get away.

I watched Lenny through the scope as he dragged his foot another step back, but it wasn’t his movement that made me do it. It was the look in his eyes as he tipped his head up, the moonlight catching on a wicked gleam there. Carving a little gray shadow where the edge of his lips were creased in a vile smirk.

No.

I don’t fucking think so.

My arm tightened on the rifle, I breathed in. Breathed out.

And shot Lenny Ace through the heart.